The Mysteries of History (June 24 Edition)
King Philip's War
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana, 1905
“He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see.” — Alice O’Connor, 1961
1675 — King Philip’s War
public domain image from wikimedia commons
350 years ago, more than fifty years after the arrival of the Mayflower and a century before the Revolutionary War, a red-hot conflict between the “Indians” and “The English” broke out in New England. The end result was a military victory for the Europeans which paved the way for further expansion by the newcomers to the area.
The following is what I wrote about King Philip’s War in my book Still Casting Shadows: A Shared Mosaic of U.S. History — Volume 1: 1620-1913:
“I am resolved not to see the day when I have no country.”—King Philip (Meta com)
“The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.”—Mark Twain
Unfortunately, just one generation removed from the peace that had existed between Wampanoag Chief Massasoit and the Pilgrims, relations between the Euro-Americans and Indians had deteriorated by this time. Remarking on the root causes of their problems, Bodge’s “Soldiers in King Philip’s War” notes:
It will not be necessary to discuss the causes leading up to the war. It is enough to say here, that the English had assumed the government of the country, and followed their course of settlement with small regard to the rights of the natives. In some of the plantations, the settlers purchased their lands of the Indians, as a matter of precau tion; partly that they might have that show of title in case any other claim should be set up in opposition to theirs, and partly to conciliate the savages, whose hostility they feared, and whose friendship was profitable in the way of trade, in furs and other products of the hunt. The Indians were always at disadvantage with the English, in all the arts of civilized life. The English paid no heed to Indian laws or customs or traditions; and ruthlessly imposed their own laws, customs, and religious ideas, with no apparent thought of their intolerance and injustice. They made treaties with the savages in the same terms which they would have used had they been dealing with a civilized nation. They made out deeds, in language which only the learned framers themselves could understand.
Massasoit had died in 1661. Massasoit’s son Wamsutta, or Alexander, became the new sachem in 1662. Wamsutta did not live long, though. Upon hearing rumors of an Indian uprising, aggravated by the news that Wamsutta had sold land to the colony in Rhode Island (considered by those in Plymouth to be radicals), a contingent of Plymouth men under Josiah Winslow captured Wamsutta/Alexander, and under threat of death if he resisted, marched him to Plymouth to give an accounting of himself and his tribe respecting these rumors.
Within a few days, Wamsutta was dead. Many today believe he was either deliberately poisoned by colonists in Plymouth, or died as a result of medical malpractice by the Plymouth physician. At the time, the Wampanoags believed their chief had been killed by their former allies. Wamsutta’s brother Metacom, or Philip, replaced his brother as Wampanoag sachem.
Wamsutta and Metacom had been given, at their father Massasoit’s request, English names in addition to their birth names. The names given them were those of ancient kings of Greece, Alexander and Philip.
Metacom originally honored the treaties made by his father with the Euro Americans, but after years of further encroachment, destruction of the land, slave trade, and slaughter—not to mention the bad blood engendered by the events surrounding his brother’s demise—Metacom had had enough. Another exacerbating circumstance was the perception of the Indians that the Euro Americans seemed to be growing ever more arrogant. The Euro-Americans felt that they were meant by God to own the land. This attitude resulted in an atmosphere of antagonism replacing that of amity and mutual aid that had prevailed among the first generation of Euro-Americans and Indians.
Metacom was ridiculed by the Euro-Americans for the “airs” he displayed by insisting on dressing in European-style clothing. Derisively, they gave him the sobriquet “King Philip.” Metacom (sometimes called Metacomet or Pometacom) formed a coalition of Indian tribes to fight against the Euro Americans.
Three of Metacom’s counselors were killed for the murder of a Christian Indian who had allegedly warned Plymouth Governor Josiah Winslow (Edward’s son) that the Wampanoags were preparing for war. This made that informant’s warning something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But were the three accused really guilty of the murder of John Sassamon, the Indian who had fought alongside the English in the Pequot war and had studied at Harvard? It may have been an accident—Sassamon’s body was found under the ice long after he had disappeared. Perhaps he had fallen through and drowned. Even if it was murder, who was guilty? The accuser of Metacom’s counselors was an Indian who claimed to have witnessed the attack from afar; the “witness” however also owed a gambling debt to one of the Indians he implicated.
Regardless of whether it was murder or accident—or, if the latter, who was responsible—Sassamon’s death was a watershed event. It has been compared to the killing of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo which precipitated World War I.
Another death of an Indian also played a large role in the igniting of hostilities. Differing from the outbreak of the Pequot war, this time it was a colonist that had killed an Indian. On June 11th, a farmer shot the Indian as he observed him stealing his cattle. Metacom sought justice from the local garrison but was rebuffed. The Wampanoags then took matters into their own hands, killing not only the farmer, but also his father and five others.
From there, the violence segued into out-and-out warfare. The war lasted two years and bears the name derisively given Metacom. Based on the per centage of citizens killed, King Philip’s war was the most destructive fought in American History—one in sixteen male colonists of age to serve in the military were killed during the course of the war. The natives suffered even more.
Half of the colonist’s towns were badly damaged during the war; twelve of them were completely destroyed. Swansea, where John and Elizabeth How land’s daughter Lydia Browne (or Brown) lived, was one of the hardest hit, and in fact was the place where the war actually began, with the killing of the farming family noted above. In June, many of that town were compelled to f lee due to raids by the Indians. Besides the physical danger, the war also battered the economy as a result of the disruption in the fur trade, the fishing business, and trade with the West Indies.
Also similar to the situation in the Pequot War, the first months of the war went the Indians’ way due to disorganization among, and internal rivalries between, the Euro-Americans. Only after combining as the “United Colonies” of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, and New Hamp shire were the colonists able to turn the tide and eventually win the war. The Gorham family would lose their American patriarch in the process.
It would be amiss and remiss not to note, though, that without the participation of the Iroquois on the side of the colonists, an English victory probably would have been impossible.
Questions: Was calling Metacomet “King Philip” an honorific or a method of ridicule? Is there a way the native inhabitants of the region and the European colonizers could have preserved peace, or at least a lack of out-and-out brutal warfare against one another?
